1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to systems, apparatus, and methods for distributed data storage, and more particularly to systems, apparatus, and methods for distributed data storage using an information dispersal algorithm so that no one location will store an entire copy of stored data, and more particularly still to systems, apparatus, and methods for interfacing a media player application to a dispersed data storage network.
2. Description of Prior Art
Dispersed data storage networks (“DDSNs”) store data as an arbitrary number of data slices, generally with each data slice being stored on a separate slice server. Before a collection of data is stored it is segmented into a number of data segments, which may be of fixed or variable sizes. Each data segment is then sliced into a predetermined arbitrary number of data slices. Each data slice will generally contain minimal or no usable information by itself, but instead, must be combined with other data slices to reconstruct a usable data segment. DDSNs offer a number of advantages over traditional storage solutions including greater security and reliability.
Prior art DDSN systems, such as those offered by Cleversafe, Inc. of Chicago, Ill., have generally used an access computer, sometimes referred to as a Grid Access Computer or an Accesser™. The access computer is generally a high-performance server adapted to provide DDSN access to a large number of clients, such as an office of 20 or more users. Generally, the access computer does not have to be specified to handle the worst case scenario of each client computer accessing a maximum amount of data from the DDSN simultaneously, as office use often comes in bursts as a file is read or written. However, some types of usage, such as streaming media, require a continuous stream of data.
Streaming digital media is well known in the art, with Adobe Flash, Windows Media Audio and Video, and QuickTime being well known examples. Streaming media is generally served to clients by a streaming media server, which is specified to handle some number of simultaneous streams. Media serving platforms use a number of techniques to share streams across multiple streaming media servers, such as round-robin allocation. Prior art media serving platforms have not made use of DDSNs, and instead, have utilized individual or shared Redundant Array of Independent Drives (“RAID”) or Storage Area Networks (“SAN”).
One technique used by media providers to improve reliability and quality of service for streaming digital media presentations is the use of Content Delivery Networks (“CDNs”). A CDN is a network of computers that cooperate to deliver content to users. Generally, content is replicated among servers on an as needed basis, so that a server with the most desirable performance characteristics can serve content to a particular client. Often, content is replicated to the network so that it is available from a number of geographic locations, based on the assumption that a server located geographically close to a particular client will provide a better quality of service connection, if all else is equal.
A particular digital media stream will usually provide a specific quality. For example, a digital media presentation may be encoded at 720 pixels by 480 pixels, at 30 frames with second, with audio provided as 64 kilobits per second MP3. If quality levels are desired to serve users with less modern hardware or slower network connections, different media presentations will be encoded at the desired quality levels. Certain streaming media technologies allow a player to scale the frame rate of streamed video by skipping frames. This may result in “jerky” video, but will still allow a viewer to view the presentation.
More recent advances in encoding technology allow a single presentation to scale across a number of quality levels. For example, Flexible Block Wavelet encoding allows a streaming media presentation to scale across an arbitrary number of resolutions based on the bandwidth available to a particular client, and the ability of the client to process data.